Okay, I've had it

I swear, if I lived in a swing state, there is little that would make me more likely to vote for Ralph Nader than the anti-Nader rantings of Kerry supporters. I pulled these, uh, comments about Nader and Nader voters off of just the blogs I usually visit in just one day - and I'm sure I didn't catch them all:

- deluding yourselves
- absolute idiots
- [you] think most of what the left in this country holds dear is absolutely irrelevant and expendable
- I have no more use for you people
- deluded
- I have yet to run into anyone who is voting for Nader, saving myself an aggravated assault charge.
- vote for unmitigated disaster
- I fucking hate Nader
- [Nader will have] helped destroy the country, he will have betrayed all of us
- you've lost your mind
- you've been hiding under a rock for the last 4 years
- beyond foolish
- a betrayal of those we care for
- simply nuts
- delusional bullshit
- need to wake up
- crazed, nutty, off their rocker wingnuts

Well, I'm fed up with it. I'm fed up with the arrogance, the conceit, the inanity, the paranoia, the condescension, but most of all with the whining and the utterly infantile political stupidity.

The whole "Bush is all Nader's fault" business was actually begun as spin by the DNC - spin they knew was not true but that these people have swallowed whole. It was done to cover up the Dums own bumbling, their own sloppy campaign, their own inability to deal with GOPper spin during the campaign and, equally importantly, after the election. It has served more than anything else to dump into the memory hole the crawling, cowardly, craven refusal of the Dums to challenge the Florida vote in Congress, with the heroic Al Gore caving right along with the rest of them. I've mentioned before that the scene in Fahrenheit 9/11 that got me more than any other was that of one House member of the black caucus after another standing before Congress to challenge the certification of the election results because of the massive vote fraud that took place and one after another being gaveled down by St. Al because not one - not one, which is all it would have taken - Democratic senator had either the guts or the decency to sign on.

But to hear people tell it now, whose fault was the bumbling? Whose fault was the cowardice? Why, Ralph Nader's, of course. Who else?

So here we are in 2004 and the same arguments are being raised even before the election. Pre-emptive excuses, we could call them. Well, to the people who would and do say the sort of things quoted above, I say this:

Does this mean that case for Kerry is so weak that it can't be argued on its merits but only, still, even now, on the grounds of "he's not Bush?" Is there nothing Kerry supporters can say to Nader voters about what Kerry would do for the issues they care about? Or is whining just easier?

And what if Kerry wins? Is that the end of things, the end of the need for work? Or are we going to, as we've done before (think Carter, think Clinton I, think Clinton II), get in someone who'll make us say "thank God it's not the other one," only to spend four years feeling depressed and betrayed and yet at the end of that time feel obligated to celebrate them largely for the lack of any real alternative (a lack that exists to a significant extent because of our failure to demand one) as the center slips further and further to the right?

If Kerry wins, does anyone here think the GOPper mean machine will suddenly disappear? Or that the Dums will control Congress? Are you going to fight back?

Disagree with Nader voters if you will, argue with them, do your best to persuade them, but threats, mockery, and vituperation, calling them "crazed, nutty, off their rocker wingnuts," is not only contemptible on its face, it's divisive, counterproductive, and politically stupid. If Kerry wins, there are still going to be some real battles even to achieve the little he aims for; if he loses, you're going to have to fight even harder. And right now you're busily alienating people whose active support you will want.

And that, friends, no matter how hard anyone tries to spin it, is not Ralph Nader's fault. It's yours.